Previously: Lily is still avoiding Snape. She runs into James in the Great Hall, and she reluctantly accepts his help on a Transfiguration essay. Marlene figures out that Lily and Snape are having another argument, but Lily wants to avoid another conversation where Marlene tells her that Snape's no good. They read in the paper that Rawlings's mother was killed by Death Eaters. Lily becomes suspicious when the paper mentions that Rawlings is an only child even though Lily knows that she has a brother. After looking into it, she finds that brother's death announcement in an old paper in the library, which only confuses Lily more. After the conversation with Lily, James tries to apologize to Amos Diggory about an old prank. To his shock, Diggory only thinks he's setting up another prank.


Chapter 52: The Green-Eyed Monster

Lily took a deep breath to calm her nerves as she smoothed her hair in the mirror. The outfit that Marlene had picked out was on the conservative side – a cashmere sweater of the deepest green, dark blue jeans, and sturdy but stylish boots – but Lily preferred that over the other choices that she and Alice had debated on. Thankfully, the sweater arms were long enough to cover the scar on her wrist because although Lily had finally accepted that the scar was never going to disappear completely, she preferred to hide it from view whenever possible – plus, she had no wish to discuss the events surrounding the scar with Terry. The only other ornamentation she wore was the necklace Severus had given her for Christmas in first year and the silver headband that Marlene had given her for her thirteenth birthday.

This was it – her first date.

And she was bloody terrified.

"What if I say something stupid, Alice? What do I do then?" she nervously asked her best friend as she fiddled with Severus's necklace.

However, since Alice had stuck her wand in her mouth as she curled Lily's hair, it was Marlene who answered from her spot on her bed.

"You say, 'Just making sure you were listening,' and then laugh it off," she instructed as she casually flipped through the newest edition of Witch Weekly.

Lily absentmindedly nodded as she stared at herself in the mirror, trying to steady her breathing. Alice brushed out the last strand of Lily's hair, tapping it with her wand, and Lily watched as it curled against itself beautifully. While Marlene was an expert when it came to fashion, Alice could do things with hair that nobody else could – as evidenced by her annual dramatic changes to her own hairstyle – and so it had fallen on Alice to try to make something of her hair. Lily was impressed – while Petunia had certainly helped her when she was younger, Alice had the added benefit of magic, and Lily had to admit that the result was stunning.

"There!" exclaimed Alice with a final flourish of her wand – ever since she had found out that Kingsley, the new Quidditch Captain, had appointed her to fill Alexandra Hopkirk's vacant Seeker position, Alice had been unusually peppy. "I now pronounce you date-worthy."

"Thanks a bunch, Alice – I don't know what I would do without you," Lily breathed, trying to steady her shaking hands as she stared at the cascade of soft curls in the mirror. She tilted her head from side to side, carefully fluffing parts.

"Oi! Are you forgetting who picked out your outfit?" Marlene said, sitting up straight and setting aside her magazine. While her tone indicated her annoyance, Lily could tell from her amused smirk that Marlene had not really taken offense.

"You're right," said Lily with a grin. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Marley."

Here, Lily quick ducked to avoid the pillow Marlene – she hated the nickname Marley with a passion – had thrown her way, where it sailed over her head and straight into Alice, who could barely get her hands up quickly enough to catch it. Alice quickly threw it back at Marlene, who dodged the pillow deftly, and the pillow smacked poor Mary right in the face, rudely jerking her from the catnap she had been taking on her four-poster bed with a startled yelp.

"Watch it, Marlene," growled Alice. "I just spent twenty minutes on Lily's hair – don't you dare mess it up."

"Sorry," said Marlene, not looking sorry at all as she flopped back onto the bed. "You better get going, Lils – Terry's probably waiting."

"Right, right …" said Lily.

She stood up from the chair that Alice had placed in front of the bathroom mirror. Smoothing the wrinkles out of her sweater, Lily turned around from side to side to double check that she had not sat on anything embarrassing. Alice helpfully pulled her now-curled hair back behind her shoulders and straightened out the dangling ends. Lily closed her eyes and took one final, deep breath.

"Okay," she said, opening her eyes. "I'm ready."

"That's the spirit! C'mon – I'll walk you down," said Alice, looping her arm around Lily's elbow and guiding her towards the doorway.

For the first time in her life, Lily was grateful that their dormitory was at the very top of the stairs because as Alice carefully led her down the spiraling staircase, her friend kept whispering quick tips and words of wisdom to her. Lily was certain that she would remember none of this by the time she was sitting in the Three Broomsticks with Terry, but all the same – she was deeply grateful for her best friend's help.

"… And don't forget that although he's paying for the drinks, you should also buy him something – you could try taking him to Honeydukes afterwards and pay for some sweets. That way he can still pay for the 'first date' but in the end, you're splitting the cost still. But you may want to visit Three Broomsticks before Honeydukes just 'cause Three Broomsticks is a good, solid start to a date."

Lily nodded as they reached the last step. Alice went first, but she was careful not to pull Lily along and waited for her at the bottom, still jabbering away with her last-minute pointers. However, while Alice was concerned about who should pay for the first date, Lily was mostly worried about not doing or saying something stupid – such as throwing up, which is what she currently felt like doing. She had already had breakfast that morning, and she had no desire to see her toast reappear on her date. After the date would be fine – it was just the before and during part that had her worried.

"Now remember," said Alice, "Marlene, Mary, and I will be there soon, so if you need help, then all you have to do is look at us and scratch your nose. Either Marlene or I will meet you in the closest bath –"

"Evans? Is that you?"

She quickly whipped around to find the source of the voice: Potter, who was lounging on an armchair while his friends Black and Remus played what looked like a very violent game of chess and Pettigrew was busy scribbling what looked like an essay for Charms.

Lily opened her mouth to tell him to bugger off, but she froze when she saw his face – Potter was looking at her with an expression she had never seen before. His wide-eyed gaze swept from her silver headband, all the way down to her shoes, and back up to her headband. While his friends had all glanced her way when he said something, Potter was the only one to stare at her and not break eye contact. Black, who had noticed that Potter still had not looked away, leaned over and used two fingers to shut his friend's jaw. That seemed to jar Potter out of whatever daydream he had been having.

"You look … you look really, really nice, Evans – I mean, just … wow," he breathlessly.

Lily shifted uncomfortably underneath his gaze. While Black's interruption had thankfully jerked him back from the reverie he had been in, Potter was still staring at her – and she had never had somebody look at her the way Potter was looking at her right now.

"Um … thanks?" said Lily hesitatingly.

"Lily has a date with Terry Abbott – I just spent all morning getting Lily here pretty for him," said Alice, beaming proudly.

That broke the spell.

"Terry Abbott – the wanker in Hufflepuff?" demanded Potter. "You're going to Hogsmeade with him?"

"He's not a wanker –" started Lily hotly, but Potter interrupted her.

"He nearly cried when he forgot his essay for Flitwick back in his dormitory – sorry, Evans, but he's a wanker if I ever saw one."

"He is not! Terry's been nothing but a gentleman to me – which is more than I can say for you," spat Lily, glaring at him.

"Gentleman? I can be a gentleman," said Potter, and suddenly, he was up on his feet. Behind him, Lily noticed that Black was rolling his eyes, and for once, she was in agreement with him. "What 'cha need, Evans? Whatever you want, I'm your guy."

"As tempting as that is, I neither want nor need your assistance with anything at the present," snapped Lily.

"But you just said –"

"No! For Merlin's sake, Potter – just leave me be! I am going on a date with a boy – a boy whose company I happen to enjoy very much – and you are going to leave – us – alone – please!"

Without waiting for a response from Potter, Lily grabbed a frozen Alice by the arm – after her friend's initial comment, she had been silently watching the exchange that followed with wide eyes – and stomped away, pausing only to clamber through the portrait hole and drag Alice along with her, who remained quiet for the rest of the walk down to the courtyard where Terry was waiting. Her friends had learned long ago that it was best to let the infamous temper fizzle out before approaching the topic in question, so Lily was left to silently stew in her anger towards Potter.

Terry was already there by the time Lily came into view of the Entrance Hall. He had not yet noticed her, so Lily quickly ducked behind a suit of armor with Alice in tow. Quickly taking several deep breaths, Lily shook her head to clear it of thoughts of Potter and focus on what was ahead of her – her date. Beside her, Alice helpfully straightened the bottom of her sweater and fluffed her hair to show off the carefully curled locks.

"Remember the 'help' signal?" asked Alice as she tucked a stray hair back into Lily's headband.

"Look at you and scratch my nose for at least three seconds – ish,"

"Good – and how are you going to split the cost?" she inquired further, now onto dusting off Lily's shoulders.

"He pays for drinks at Three Broomsticks, and I pay for sweets at Honeydukes – but don't tell him I'm going to pay until we're in the shop and looking at items."

"Excellent. Ready – set – go."

Alice spun Lily around and gave her a gentle push towards the Entrance Hall, where Terry had finally noticed her.

Lily tried to smile at Terry as she approached him, but she was certain that her nerves had turned it into a grimace. She glanced back behind her to see Alice mouth, "You got this," and give her two thumbs up. Clearing her throat, Lily quickly turned back around. Terry was watching Alice with an amused grin that was much more relaxed than Lily's felt – although Lily also noticed that he was nervously wringing his hands as well, which gave her a little bit more courage.

"It's okay – Olly just gave me my pep talk as well," said Terry.

"Did he really?" said Lily with a nervous laugh. She quickly tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, he did. To be honest, though, I didn't really listen to most of it – shall we?"

~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ 1974 ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Lily and Abbott were sitting on the opposite side of the room in Three Broomsticks, clearly enjoying their date – and James Potter was not happy about that.

When Lily had first come down from the girls' dormitory, dressed for her date, James had been struck dumb. While it might have appeared to the casual observer that Lily had dressed just a little nicer than she normally did, James could see that she – most likely with the help of Alice and Marlene – had taken time that morning. She only ever wore that sweater and silver headband to Slughorn's parties, and her jeans were much darker and sleeker than the pants she typically wore while the boots (according to Sirius) belonged to Marlene – and her hair … Lily almost always pulled back her dark red hair so that it stayed out of her face, but now it flowed past her shoulders in gorgeous curls that gleamed like copper when it caught the sun's rays.

Simply put, Lily was beautiful.

And James had acted like a complete idiot.

At first, he thought that he was doing okay. He had complimented her, and she did not threaten to hex him if he did not shut up – but then Alice had to ruin it. Well … it was more like James had ruined it when Alice mentioned that Lily had a date – but his sudden jealousy had meant that his casual insult slipped out before James could stop himself, and things went downhill from there.

So now James was forced to sit there, moping over his Butterbeer while he watched Lily laugh at something Abbott said. She leaned closer and whispered something to Abbott that James could not hear. Abbott responded to that by shortening the distance between the two of them even more with a smile on his face as he said something that caused Lily to give him a coy smile and tuck a lock of her hair that had been continuously falling out back behind her ear. James felt a hot flash of jealousy, and he gripped his Butterbeer even tighter, desperately wishing that he had been sitting in Abbott's place.

"… James? James!"

"What?" he asked, finally turning away from Lily and Abbott to see that all three of his friends were staring at him – Remus with concern, Peter with apprehension, and Sirius with derision (although that was only after he noticed what had caught his best friend's attention).

"Okay, that's it," said Sirius. "This has gone too far, James, if you're too distracted to even talk about our Halloween prank."

"I was listening! To … most of it – I'm sorry, what were we planning on doing again?"

Sirius rolled his eyes while Remus snorted at his complete obliviousness.

"Listen to me, James – Silvanah Vane and Ivy Brown are sitting right over there by the bar, and this is what we're going to do: I'm going to convince them to come over here to sit with us; you're going to flirt with Silvanah; if Evans is even the slightest bit interested in you, then you'll succeed in making her jealous – if she's not, then you're going to continue to have a good time with Silvanah."

"What about Moony and me?" Peter protested from his corner of the booth, pointing to both himself and Remus.

"What about Moony and you?" demanded Sirius. "This is about helping James get over Evans."

This time, it was Remus who rolled his eyes as he said, "C'mon, Pete – I'm sure we can find something to do at Zonko's. Maybe you'll get lucky and run into Greta … what was her name again, the girl from Hufflepuff?"

"Catchlove – and I told you that in confidence, Moony," muttered Peter, furiously blushing.

"No, no – that's great," said Sirius. "You and Moony can try your luck at Zonko's while James and I try our luck here. Sound like a plan? Great. Ready – break."

Without saying another word, Sirius took off in the direction of the bar while Remus pulled Peter to his feet and headed in the opposite direction, towards the door. Within five seconds, James was sitting alone at their booth with nothing but a good view of Lily smiling at her date and four nearly empty bottles of Butterbeer. He cast one more look of longing Lily's way, but when she failed to notice him, he sighed and turned his attention to the bar.

Sirius was already at work. He approached Silvanah and Ivy, placing one arm around each of their shoulders as he gave them a winning grin and leaned closer to whisper something in their ears. Whatever it was must have concerned James because as Sirius flagged down Madam Rosmerta, Silvanah turned around and flashed him a flirtatious wink. James tried to give her a convincing smile in return. It must have worked because Silvanah shot him one last grin before turning around to grab two of the Butterbeers that Sirius had ordered. When Silvanah was not looking, James chanced a glance at Lily – but to his immense disappointment, the redhead still had not noticed him.

Unfortunately, he had to break away his gaze because just then, Sirius arrived with two girls and four new Butterbeers in tow. He and Ivy sild into one side of the booth while Silvanah took a seat right next to James, sliding one of the two Butterbeers she was holding in front of him. She snuggled much closer to him than James was expecting. He was never one to outwardly display any discomfort, though, so he simply put one arm over her shoulders and flashed her what he hoped was a winning smile – it must have been convincing enough because Silvanah's eyes brightened and she actually rested her head against James's shoulder.

"It's been a while since we've talked to either of you – what's up with that?" asked Ivy, giving Sirius her best pout.

"Oh, y'know – we've been living the high life: detentions, pranks, friendly duels with the Slytherins … all that stuff that makes life worth living," said Sirius with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"You're just missing one little thing, my dear boys …" said Silvanah, and she teasingly walked her fingers up James's arm until she reached his ear.

"And what is that?" asked James. As he gave her another crooked grin, he covertly cast a glance at the other side of the bar – but still, Lily had not noticed him.

"Someone to share it with …" finished Silvanah, and she bit her lip as she gave him yet another one of her coy smiles.

"Well, I wouldn't say that we've been alone, per se …" said Sirius as he leaned back in his chair with a mischievous grin.

James did his best to follow the conversation, laughing at the parts he was supposed to laugh at and making sure to shoot Silvanah his crooked grin every now and again, but in reality, his mind was focused on what was occurring across the bar. He tried to sneak glimpses of Lily and Abbott when he thought nobody was looking. Thankfully, neither Silvanah nor Ivy noticed, but he could never hide anything from Sirius – several times, his friend would give him a swift kick to his shins when he noticed James's eyes wandering and give him a sharp but almost imperceptible shake of the head. Eventually, though, James could not help but tune out the rest of the conversation.

That was why it came as a bit of a shock when Sirius got up.

"Wait – mate, where are you going?" asked James, suddenly jerking back into existence.

Ivy rolled her eyes as she said, "Siri and I are going somewhere more … private – you would have known that had you actually been involved in our conversation."

Two entirely different thoughts raced through James's mind at Ivy's statement.

Firstly: Siri?, thought James sardonically. He glanced at Sirius's face, and from his friend's brief grimace deduced that Sirius was not too fond of his new nickname, but he was willing to overlook that small detail if it meant he would be rewarded with a good, old-fashioned snog – and by the looks of it, that was exactly what was about to happen.

Secondly (and more importantly) was that his lack of attention had not gone unnoticed by the girls as he previously thought it had.

Shit.

While Ivy pulled Sirius away the "more private" location, James took the time to give Silvanah, who was looking worried, his full attention.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," – Here, Silvanah instantly brightened at the pet name, which James took as a good sign – "I just have a lot on my mind right now … like how the most beautiful girl in school choose to sit by me."

Okay, the last part was a lie, but he needed to say something to make up for his lack of interest. For a brief moment, Silvanah's eyes narrowed, not quite sure if he was telling the truth, but she must have decided that either James was telling the truth or that it did not matter because she simply shrugged and gave him her coy smile.

"Poor James – whatever will we do to … take your mind off things," she teased, leaning closer with each word.

James felt his pulse quicken.

"Well, I did –"

"How about this?"

Silvanah closed the distance between them, and before he knew it, she was kissing him – and it was not what James was expecting.

While Sirius had always treated snogging flippantly, James's mother had told him plenty of times that the first kiss was supposed to be … magical. The first kiss was supposed to be a special moment. It was supposed to feel like there was nobody else in the world.

It was none of those things. James did not feel any fireworks go off in his head or anything – it simply felt like he and Silvanah were pressing their lips together, and if he was being honest with himself, it was … awkward. It was still nice – but it was also awkward. James was still keenly aware that they were sitting in the middle of a crowded bar where anybody could look at them, and while he could not deny the pleasure that shot through him when Silvanah pulled him closer to deepen the kiss, a small part of James also could not deny that there was a twinge of disappointment lurking under the desire.

It was only when Silvanah pulled away did James allow a real grin to show itself – because he had caught somebody else's eye from across the bar.

And Lily Evans was no longer smiling.


Okay, before you lovelies read too much into that last statement, I suppose I should clarify: James is trying to make Lily jealous because … well, he's a fourteen-year-old boy with a crush, so at this point, his main goal is just to try to get a reaction from Lily. However (and this will also be clarified in later chapters), you'll see that the real reason Lily is "no longer smiling" is because it's infuriating that James will ask her out and then (at least, from her POV) just go and kiss somebody else.

Also, I'm sorry – I'm not really good at writing kissing/other intimate scenes to begin with, and then there's the fact that James doesn't belong with anybody except Lily … so you kind of got an awkward scene at the end. And I apologize for that – but it had to happen at some point: just get it done and out of the way. Most – key word is "most" – of the time when I write romantic scenes, it will be either implied or from somebody else's POV because I'm simply no good at writing them.